Billionaire Jeff Bezos defended blocking The Washington Post‘s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in an op-ed on Monday, claiming the decision was a “principled” one and that there was no quid-pro-quo arrangement with any presidential candidate.
The 911-word piece is Bezos’ first comment after he ended on Friday the Post’s nearly 50-year tradition of endorsing presidential candidates, plunging the paper into a four-day period of chaos that has seen two editorial board members resign; two esteemed columnists depart the Post entirely; and more than 200,000 subscribers reportedly cancel their subscriptions—an unprecedented response to an editorial operation that risks sending a financially flagging paper further into the red.
Bezos said his decision was rooted in boosting the editorial credibility of the paper at a time when trust in media was at all-time lows.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, ‘I’m going with Newspaper A‘s endorsement,’” Bezos wrote. “None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”
